Trump threatens Pope Leo with Avignon | EUROtoday

On Tuesday after Easter, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Paul S. Coakley, Archbishop of Oklahoma City, formally condemned the ultimatum that President Trump had issued towards Iran that very same day: “The threat to destroy an entire civilization and deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure cannot be morally justified.” A day later it turned recognized that Trump’s subordinates had made a equally outrageous risk in January, directed towards Coakley’s earthly superior, Pope Leo XIV, whose Holy Week sermons the archbishop had referred to in his message on Easter Tuesday.

As “The Free Press”, the web newspaper based by Bari Weiss, reported, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the then papal nuncio in Washington, was stated to have been appointed to the War Ministry in January. Elbridge A. Colby, as Under Secretary of War for Policy, the senior coverage advisor to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, defined to the cardinal that the United States had all of the navy energy to do no matter it wished on the earth and demanded that the Church unconditionally assist American overseas coverage. One of the Pentagon officers current talked about the potential of a brand new “Popehood of Avignon.”

Pope Clement V, elected in 1305, moved his residence to Avignon in 1309, throughout the sphere of affect of the King of France. The emptiness of the Roman episcopal see (not within the authorized sense, however within the native political sense) lasted till 1376, when Gregory XI. on the urging of Saint Catherine of Siena ordered the return to the town of St. Peter. Until 1408, in the course of the Great Western Schism, antipopes resided in Avignon, i.e. popes who usually are not counted within the official checklist of Peter’s successors. Clement V, a Frenchman by delivery, formally ordered the Curia’s transfer from his personal authority. But it was preceded by an act of violence that shocked the world, a singular assault on the liberty of the church.

Boniface VIII, Clement’s predecessor, had pushed the papal claims to primacy over secular rulers to the restrict in his bulls and engaged in a battle of ethical life and political demise with King Philip IV of France. On September 7, 1303, the day earlier than the deliberate publication of a brand new bull that will have launched Philip’s topics from their oath of allegiance, French knights underneath the command of William of Nogaret, later the King’s Keeper of the Grand Seal, imprisoned the Pope in his native city of Anagni within the Campagna. The French commando operation was supported by the non-public military of the Roman noble household Colonna. After three days of imprisonment, Boniface was freed when the inhabitants of Anagni rose up towards the occupiers.

In the chronicles, the dwell tickers of world politics on the time, the assassination try was painted or embellished with all of the drastic particulars, with an emphasis on the symbolic which means. Accordingly, Boniface is claimed to have placed on the mantle of Peter and the crown of Emperor Constantine earlier than he obtained the conquerors of his palace. The previous man parried the decision to abdicate (by medieval requirements) with the reason that he would sooner die: “Here the neck, here the neck.”

He died a month after the assassination try, after returning to Rome. Nogaret later claimed in his apology that he had saved the Pope from being assassinated by the Colonna.Nogaret later claimed that he had saved the Pope from being assassinated by the Colonna. His mission was to deliver Boniface to France, the place he was to be tried for heresy. Source-critically controversial, however unforgettable, is that the Colonna clan chief with the honorary identify Sciarra (“ruffian”) gave the Pope a slap within the face. The key phrase “Popehood of Avignon” is a mafia transfer, the specter of kidnapping.

A powerful minority amongst American bishops is more likely to view their compatriot Leo’s angle in direction of Trump with skepticism. In the Trump circle’s collection of neo-imperialist fantasy initiatives, an anti-popedom underneath Bishop Robert Barron wouldn’t even be notably implausible. Mattia Ferraresi’s report in The Free Press is now attracting intense source-critical consideration. Is it even credible that somebody within the Pentagon is aware of about popes in Avignon? You can consider that right away. Colby is a Catholic and has introduced his strategic philosophy as “Catholic Realism” in Catholic media. He quotes the Gospel of Luke, as does Boniface VIII within the bull “Unam sanctam”.

One query is who knowledgeable The Free Press, an outlet favorable to Trump. It’s additionally about chronology. If the data comes not from the nunciature however from the Pentagon, the message could also be that one considers Leo’s teachings to be as presumptuous as Philip the Handsome Boniface.